Chairman NAB Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has stated that eradication of corruption is the top priority of NAB and it is committed to eliminate this menace with absolute professionalism, transparency and on merit with iron hands. Corruption is mother of all evils which undermines development and is one of the major hurdles in the way of prosperity and progress of the country.
Considering these facts, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was established as Pakistan's apex Anti-corruption organization which is assigned with the responsibility of elimination of corruption and corrupt practices and to recover looted money from corrupt and deposit it in national exchequer. He was addressing as Chief Guest at the inaugural session of 22nd Annual DGs Conference of NAB held at NAB Headquarter. The Conference will continue till September 27, 2017, said a press release issued here on Monday.
He said after assumption of responsibilities as Chairman NAB, he had taken various initiatives to revamp the Bureau. NAB has devised a comprehensive and effective National Anti-Corruption Strategy comprising of holistic approach of Awareness, Prevention and Enforcement by adopting Zero Tolerance Policy across the board to eradicate corruption and corrupt practices. He said the NAB operates under the National Accountability Ordinance-1999 which is extended to whole of Pakistan including FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Chaudhry said NAB has its National Headquarter in Islamabad and had five Regional Bureaus located at Lahore, KP, Baluchistan, Karachi and Rawalpindi/Islamabad. "During the tenure of present management of NAB, we have established three new Regional Bureaus at Multan, Sukkur and Gilgit-Baltistan in order to address the complaints of people living in far flung areas at their doorsteps about corruption and corrupt practices," said the NAB Chairman.
He said starting from the year 2014 which can be called basically a year of rejuvenation of NAB, the organization has moved with new zeal and effort. Through detailed introspection and analysis of organizational weaknesses, overhaul of procedures and business processes, all pillars of the organization ie Operations, Prosecution, Human Resource Development and Awareness & Prevention have been reactivated. "Today, NAB's operational methodology comprises of complaint verification, inquiry and investigation," added Chaudhry. He said the comparative figures from 2014 to 2017 are indicative of the hard work being put in by all ranks of NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty. Increase in the number of complaints also reflects enhanced public trusted in the NAB.
The NAB with improved infrastructure and rationalized workload, timeliness have been prescribed for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of case putting a maximum limit of 10 months- from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to investigation and finally to a reference in Accountability Court. In order to ensure uniformity and standardization, the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for investigation officers (IOs) in vogue were reviewed and revised after a gap of 10 years in order to benefit from the experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers, a system of CIT comprising of Director, Additional Director, Investigation Officer and a Senior Legal Counsel has been put in place. This will not only lend quality to the work but also ensure that no single individual can influence the proceedings. The implementation of enforcement measures and prosecution matters is being monitored in NAB through daily, weekly and monthly reports and inspections, Qamar Zaman Chaudhry further said.
"NAB has established its first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in NAB Rawalpindi which has facilities of Digital Forensics, Questioned Documents and Fingerprint Analysis. Since NAB's inception, one of NAB's major achievements is recovery of around Rs 290 billion of ill-gotten money from corrupt and deposited in the national exchequer which is a remarkable achievement of NAB," he said.
NAB chairman added that the present management of NAB has devised a comprehensive Quantified Grading System (QDS) in 2014 in order to further improve the performance of NAB Headquarter and all Regional Bureaus. Under QDS, NAB Headquarter and Regional Bureaus are being evaluated for the last three years on Annual and Midterm basis at a given criteria which has proved very successful and the performance of NAB's Regional Bureaus is being increased day by day due to regular monitoring and inspection.-PR